Thoughts on the US Election

This is going to be an unorganized rip through my thoughts on the US election.

Since the winner was a narcissist, I will begin with some ego-aggrandizement of my own. I predicted (not here, but on facebook) that Donald Trump would win the election, while losing the popular vote by over a million. The first thought is blatantly true (I had no idea he would win so much, though), while it appears the second thought may come true soon. Also, and this I felt essential, voter turnout was much, much lower than in 2012. Isn't it amusing to know Mitt Romney got more votes than Clinton?

Nonetheless, my thoughts are certainly with the protesters. It's hard to defend a man being elected in such a dubious way, and clearly the electoral college needs to be abolished. Get working on a constitutional amendment, now.

My other thought concerns the importance of messaging during an election. Here I will draw comparisons to the last two elections I voted in: Canada's last October, and Alberta's in April, 2015. I really think Hillary Clinton suffered for lack of a message; when during her concession speech, she said, "this was never about me," I had to laugh. Your election slogan was "I'm with her!" and beyond that, she had no ideas about the shape of things to come, just that she had more experience than Trump (which isn't hard. Arguably, so do I - at least I was in an actual military).

Experience can be good or bad. In Clinton's case, unfortunately, her experience resonated with Americans as being of the negative sort. It is ok to be sceptical of "experience" being a primary factor in hiring a politician anyway. While Americans wondered just who she owed debts to, I think historically to the disastrous governments of Lloyd George after WW1 and Winston Churchill in the 1950s. Experience isn't everything. Canada has enjoyed a relatively successful history of experienced leadership. If a Prime Minister served longer than two terms in office, they seem to do a good enough job to earn a place on our money.

Two-terms (8-9 years) seems to be a big barrier, especially to Conservatives, to break. Borden needed to leave office, having nearly destroyed the country (and conveniently fallen in with the British establishment). Mulroney resigned as the most unpopular Prime Minister ever, and last year, Stephen Harper went down to colossal defeat. With his cabinet members abandoning ship, Harper still charged into the election believing his experience alone would vanquish his rivals.

When the Liberals swept Atlantic Canada, I was surprised only that the NDP didn't win a seat. Having family from there, and keeping track of their affairs, it did not shock me that they universally rejected a party that patronised and insulted them. My neighbours here in Alberta, on the other hand, wondered just how dumb they could be. I hear echoes of this discourse in the aftermath of the American election.

Harper's record, outside of Alberta and Saskatchewan was pretty shit, and he should have known it. Those two provinces, insulated by oil economies, survived Harper's time as PM as the only two which enjoyed any real growth. His stewardship of the rest of the country was undeniably worse. British Columbia saw it's average annual income drop year after year. Economic decline in the rest of Canada was concealed by blowing up the housing market to titanic proportions. Now the country is worse off than the USA in 2007-2008, and the new Prime Minister is doing a great deal to try and diffuse it. So, campaigning on experience when most of the country hates you we must admit is a poor formula. That the Clinton and Harper campaigns couldn't believe the facts must point to a great amount of conceit in both groups.

As a last word on messaging, I would like to compare the "surprise" NDP government of Alberta to that of the perennial heirs-apparent, the Wild Rose Party. Notley's victory in April 2015 is, depending on your point of view, intensely correlated to the fact that she had a positive message that resonated with the province. The late Mr. Prentice was eternally trying to remove his foot from his mouth, and most importantly, the Wild Rose Party, didn't have a message for Albertans. Who can forget the debate, when Brian Jean successfully imitated a medieval monk with his mantra of "no new taxes." The NDP won because in April 2015, they appeared to be the only option.

So Donald Trump won, too. He acknowledged there was a problem in the way the USA was doing things. The people who had suffered from decades of de-industrialization and mergers and downsizing who spoke up and handed him power. This possibility was always present; it was the failure of the Democrats, and pollsters, and media, that they ignored the data they did not welcome.

Will they learn from this? Not by the looks of it.

Thanks for reading.

The Perfect Storm, part 4: Good News for Once

Well, Alberta certainly is in a pickle. Without massive resource revenues to finance the province's "rich government" the whole system was set to collapse like Russia's odds in the Paralympics. Tens of thousands were laid off; thousands moved away, and the province elected to government the party that promised to raise taxes the most. I call it making the best of a bad situation.

You'll be forgiven to think that it's only been bad news since then. Alberta's news company has certainly done its best to make it seem like the NDP have been doing nothing but screw up for a year and a half, but that simply isn't so. So, it's time to look at where we are, and more than that, identify the things that should give us hope. So together, let us stop bellyaching and whining, and realize that good things are indeed just around the corner, so long as we don't scare them off.

First of all, we need address the dreaded T: taxes. Are they so high they are crushing business? Are they so high they are crushing entrepreneurship? Are they so high they are hurting the people of Alberta? We must be honest and conclude, no, they most certainly are not. Dealing with these questions in reverse order, we must first concede that income taxes were raised solely on the province's very wealthy, otherwise known as people who can afford to pay it. The people who lost their jobs, or just their overtime, will see no increase in their taxes - which would not have been the case if a PST was initiated. Therefore, there is no more suffering for them. Indeed, the government's defence of its civil service has probably helped people more than a tax cut would. Just consider the refugees from Fort McMurray, who received aid from the province as fast as could be, including in the guise of schools for their children. Are the new taxes stifling entrepreneurship? I'm sure we all see new businesses in our neighbourhoods; at least I do. And lastly, slightly increasing corporate tax rates (which apply to profits alone) can literally in no way drive a company unprofitable. That is just not how corporate taxes work. So, we can conclude that the NDP has in fact done more to fight the deficit, and act responsibly, than any of its opposition parties offered or seem willing to do.

So, having dispelled the boogeyman of taxes away, we need to consider just all the advantages Alberta still has. Yes, oil is gone; if it comes back at all, it's return will likely to be brief, so let's move on in life. Free money is over, but we have a lot more to offer than no taxes, no oversight, and no regulations.

Probably the most important thing going on in Canada right now is not the fall in oil, but a massive housing bubble. While it affected Alberta greatly, it has reached truly lunatic proportions in Canada's first and third cities, Toronto and Vancouver. Why is this a good thing? Well, it isn't ,but it is an opportunity for Alberta. Simply put, people are losing the ability to live and work in those cities. Businesses are becoming restricted in their pools of talent as fewer and fewer people can get by in such crazy environments. We also have something that few cities in the world have: skylines filling up with empty buildings. With corporate leases reaching lows not seen since the 1980s, Alberta is rapidly assembling all the factors a business could possibly need to thrive into the future. Consider: our taxes are lower than BC's or Ontario's, largely thanks to the absence of a PST. Our electricity rates are among the lowest in the country, thanks to the collapse of fossil fuel prices. Our corporate real estate is practically free, and we have a relatively low cost of living and a well-educated, hard working population.

The only thing that could work against this favourable situation is the outrageously crazy criticism of the government. Criticism of a government is always necessary, but in Alberta it has truly reached new lows. My only fear is that our outspoken neighbours, the haters, will terrify potential businesses, either from their bad behaviour or their bad mouths. Luckily, things are just as bad in Ontario for the Wynne government, if not worse; so maybe we will dodge the bullets we fire at ourselves.

But last month De Beers relocated it's head office from Toronto to Calgary. Will they be the last? I highly doubt it. Alberta is simply too good to be true. I anticipate we will be seeing more and more companies relocate from Toronto to Calgary and Edmonton as business environment for employers and employees continues to erode there. Our skyline will fill up with the offices of Canada's biggest corporations, our economy will diversify, and people will be happier and more hopeful from it. We just have to get through this. We can do it!